Brewing giant Molson Coors disclosed Thursday that it has experienced a “cybersecurity incident” that forced it to shut down its beer production. The brewery said it’s bringing in outside forensic investigators and that delays in shipments were likely.
According to some sources, the attack took place early Tuesday morning.
The company can’t share more details about the cyberattack, while some security experts are calling the incident a ransomware attack.
In a Form-8K filed with the SEC today and available publicly, Miller Coors stated it’s bringing in an outside forensic IT firm to investigate the breach while the company works to bring its systems back up and running.
“The Company is working around the clock to get its systems back up as quickly as possible,” Miller Coors said in the document. “Although the Company is actively managing this cybersecurity incident, it has caused and may continue to cause a delay or disruption to parts of the Company’s business, including its brewery operations, production, and shipments.”
Molson Coors owns such popular beer brands as the iconic Coors and Miller, Molson Canadian, Blue Moon, Peroni, Grolsch, Killian’s, and Foster’s.
It is unknown if the attack had compromised only the Molson Coors corporate network or spread to its brands’ networks.
Similar incidents happened last year in North America. Two major beverage brands were knocked offline because of a ransomware attack in just two years.
Arizona Beverages, one of the largest beverage brands in the US, suffered a massive ransomware attack.
Then, in November last year, the famed Italian beverage vendor Campari Group (Campari, Cinzano, and Appleton) fell victim to a ransomware attack that shut down most of the company’s IT network.
Speaking of the Miller Coors incident, Niamh Muldoon, a global data protection officer with OneLogin, said these attacks illustrate how cybercriminals are targeting high-profile organizations to interrupt key business operations and manufacturing.
